So I'm a pretty big fan of the Space Marines Battles series. The latest offering from the Black Library is the Fall of Damnos by Nick Kyme. I have been having a hard time with some of Mr. Kyme's books. I read both of his Dwarf books pretty easily, but the Salamanders books are foiling me at the moment. I can't put my finger on it, but they are just hard for me to get through.
Fall of Damnos is different. It is an excellent book if for no other reason than I firmly believe this gives us some deep spoilers into the upcoming Necron Codex.
Much like many of the 40k novels that deal with the Necrons, some miners disturb a Necron tomb, and all hell breaks loose. Same thing on Damnos. Before the Ultramarines can get there to help out, the planet is completely overrun except for one city near the southern pole.
This book is a follow up from Nick Kyme's Assault on Black Reach novel that went along with the 40k starter box. As a result, there are some things that are going on in this book that I don't understand. I thought about going out and buying the AoBR novel, until I saw how much it would cost, but that is a different post.
Cato Sicarius orders his 2nd Company onto Damnos to fight the Necrons. The fighting is very good, and the insight into the new way the Necrons would be handled was excellent. I really hope this is how the they will be treated as they do not seem as bland and "blah" as they currently are.
There were a few things that caught me. I really enjoyed how the humans are portrayed in this book. They are fighting for their home. They know they have a very bleak outlook, but they fight on. There were some space marine schemes I really didn't like. For a majority of the book one of the conflicts discussed was whether the captain of the 1st or 2nd company succeed Marneus Calgar. I really didn't like the idea that the space marines are ambitious like that . I like to think of them as stoic and duty-bound, not petty.
Even with all of this, this book is excellent. I give it four phased out necrons out of five.
Thanks for the review. The Horus Hersey novels prove the Space Marines or more importantly the the Primarchs were petty about who was the emperors favorite or who should have been Warmaster. I would think the Ultramarines a little more rigid though, as Gulliman probably mapped out who succeeds who in the codex astartes.
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